For over three decades, Spain has been a quiet leader in innovative drug policies. Aside from its globally known cannabis social clubs, its international influence remains limited. This is partly because Spain never undertook a formal process of decriminalisation; drug use and possession for personal use were simply never criminalised in its Penal Code. However, the Spanish approach is anything but straightforward, marked by complex regional divisions and distinctive local policies that make it difficult to identify a cohesive “Spanish model.”
Historically, Spain’s stance on drug policy was forged out of a crisis. By the late 1980s, Spain had the highest prevalence of HIV in Europe, with Barcelona’s drug-related mortality rate being among the highest in the continent. Communities already on the margins felt the harshest impacts of this crisis. AIDS and heroin overdoses became the leading causes of death for young people aged 15-35, catalysing a response that would set Spain apart in drug policy innovation.
Rather than adopt a blanket approach, Spain’s regions responded differently: while Madrid leaned toward a biomedical model focused on abstinence, regions like Catalonia, Andalusia, and the Basque Country pioneered harm reduction measures that would become a hallmark of Spain’s approach by the late 1990s.
The “lite” Spanish decriminalisation model is defined by the absence of criminal charges for drug use and possession for personal use. In 1974, the Spanish Supreme Court clarified that possession would only be criminal if intended for third-party consumption, exempting personal use from prosecution—a ruling maintained to this day. Crucially this leniency doesn’t mean freedom: Spain continues to impose strict administrative penalties on consumption and possession in public spaces, with fines ranging from 601 to 30,000 euros. In 2022 alone, Spain issued over 146,000 sanctions for public drug use, and with the 2015 “Gag Law,” nearly 60% of these fines are tied to drug use violations.
While effectively operating a system of decriminalisation, Spain is also Europe’s leader in cannabis-related fines, representing an astounding 43% of all European cannabis-specific violations. These fines disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, especially those experiencing homelessness or economic precarity, compounding stigma and often pushing people who use drugs toward isolated and unsafe spaces, exacerbating overdose risks.
Expanding harm reduction nationwide
Despite these challenges, Spain has quietly established one of Europe’s most extensive harm reduction networks. Today, Catalonia hosts 15 of the country’s 17 supervised consumption rooms. Programmes such as Methadone Maintenance (MMP) and Needle Exchange Programmes (NEP), established in the 1980s and 1990s, are now available nationwide. Spain even launched Europe’s first prison-based NEP in 1997 in Bilbao; mobile methadone units are also available across the country. Spain’s cannabis social clubs, first established as small, local associations in 1991, now total over 1,500 nationwide, celebrated internationally for providing safe access and legal support for cannabis users.
Spain’s innovations also include specialised support tailored to marginalised communities. The heroin-assisted treatment program (HAT) in Andalusia, which provides injectable heroin, has been running for over two decades, while Catalonia has pioneered oral administration trials.
In 2017, Metzineres opened in Barcelona, a first-of-its-kind safe space exclusively for women and non-binary people facing violence and extreme vulnerability, offering a supported consumption space to enhance safety. By 2020, Barcelona also opened Europe’s first residential centre with supervised consumption, followed by a psychedelic therapy mental health centre in 2021—advances that have made Spain a quiet but significant player in drug policy reform.
Structural issues persist
However, the deeper structural issues stemming from drug prohibitionist policies persist, particularly felt by communities already burdened by social inequity. While harm reduction programmes have improved access to healthcare and reduced HIV transmission and overdose deaths, they are often designed without an intersectional lens. Harm reduction services were designed to minimise the risks directly related to drug use. Although they are often the only ones providing support to people who use drugs and face multiple vulnerabilities, they lack the resources to offer the holistic care these people require.
Many harm reduction efforts operate within specialised drug networks, rarely intersecting with broader services like mental health, gender-based violence support, or homelessness care, excluding those with more complex needs. On one hand, these networks often do not address the needs of people who use drugs beyond abstinence. On the other hand, drug use itself becomes the main barrier to engaging with these networks, either because they do not accept people who use drugs, or because they expel them if they do. The stigma, pathologisation, and exclusion of people who use drugs are linked to a lack of services and the systematic violation of their rights.
This system not only fails to address the root causes of drug-related inequality but also reinforces mechanisms of control that further marginalise vulnerable groups. Administrative sanctions for drug use, justified under the guise of “citizen coexistence,” criminalise the very existence of people facing poverty, homelessness, and social discrimination. This criminalisation is exacerbated for those without stable immigration status, further entrenching exclusion and leaving countless lives constrained by structural barriers still unaddressed by the state.
Spain’s high incarceration rate, especially among women, is a glaring example of these punitive policies. In 2023, Spain led Europe in its number of incarcerated women, with most serving sentences for small-scale drug trafficking or poverty-related crimes. For these women, drug policy is not an abstract debate, but a daily reality where structural inequality is enforced under the guise of security.
Ultimately, Spain’s journey shows both the potential and the limitations of drug policy innovation when it lacks a fully inclusive perspective. The harm reduction model has undoubtedly saved lives and prevented the incarceration of many; however, its impact remains limited by an incomplete understanding of the social factors that drive drug use and exclusion.
A truly progressive Spanish drug policy will require the nation to move beyond harm reduction alone and instead address the broader socio-economic injustices entrenched and perpetuated by its prohibitionist policies. Only then will Spain’s efforts resonate as a unified model of change that can dismantle the stigma and exclusion faced by so many in its society.
